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Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama answers questions about his new game, Slitterhead
Slitterhead was unveiled at The Game Awards 2021 in what can only be described as a hellish trailer. It’s led by Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, but as we pointed out after its reveal, it looks to be a different experience — bright, loud, and very bloody — albeit with too many too-sharp limbs The grotesque horror of horror is apparently still abundant.
In a new Q&A video, the founders of developer Bokeh Game Studio – Slitterhead creator and Bokeh CEO Toyama, along with CTO and game director Junya Okura and COO and producer Kazunobu Sato – reveal More information about this game. The session didn’t delve into the game, but it did reveal some interesting details, including that Slitterhead isn’t actually a straight-up horror game at all.
(Reply in Japanese, but subtitles are supported in multiple languages, including Japanese, English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.)
“The game didn’t quite get into the horror genre,” Toyama explained. “It spans multiple genres that express horror. From there, I want to expand the player base who can access the game, including players who don’t normally play horror games. I want a game that can be enjoyed for its action,” but his The concept doesn’t just revolve around killing enemies. It clashes with ideas and makes players reluctant to enter certain battles. I want to achieve action and drama through this game. “
Slitterhead will be in third person, and while parsing the response is tricky, it sounds like it will be played from multiple angles. It hasn’t been decided whether there will be any DLC or expansion packs — “We need to implement a strong main game first,” Toyama said — but the studio founders seem to be enjoying the fact that the choice is now in their hands.
“In the past, these decisions required Sony’s approval,” Sato said. “In our current state, if it’s interesting, we can keep making it, so if the demand is big enough, it’s easier for us to answer.”
Okura said the developers “wanted to focus on entertainment rather than pure horror,” so there shouldn’t be any parts that players decide to drop because they’re literally frozen in fear. That doesn’t mean there won’t be some tough struggles, though. “Even though the game is more action-oriented, I wanted to include a horror aspect,” Okura said. “There are also some slow and fast moments. I wanted to add a bit of horror to the slow parts to balance it with the crazy action moments.”
In that sense, Slitterhead sounds a bit like Ghostwire: Tokyo, a new game from Tango Gameworks, which we recently described as “more Watch Dogs 2 than Evil Within.” But Toyama said he hopes to return to Silent Hill’s roots one day — but only if the conditions are right.
“I hope to one day do something with some classic psychological horror themes, like I did in Silent Hill,” he said. “However, I’d rather do it with very limited resources, such as a budget. Or have to focus on one person. Right now, our employees are empowered to take action. I want to use their skills to go in another direction. However, I also hope to do something more personal one day.
This Q&A video is the first of two parts, the second of which is scheduled for release on March 4th.